Letters From A Tory

7 responses so far ↓

• muchgrace // February 18, 2008 at 9:32 am

  To be honest I followed your link more in disbelief than curiosity … and then I re-read 2 Timothy 3 - (The Message): Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people. These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them; women who, depressed by their sinfulness, take up with every new religious fad that calls itself “truth.” They get exploited every time and never really learn. These men are like those old Egyptian frauds Jannes and Jambres, who challenged Moses. They were rejects from the faith, twisted in their thinking, defying truth itself. But nothing will come of these latest impostors. Everyone will see through them, just as people saw through that Egyptian hoax.

• Spider's Web // February 18, 2008 at 10:36 am

  Thank you for that enlightended commentary muchgrace. I was especially intrigued by the following statement: ‘women depressed by their sinfulness’. Now they definitely got this one wrong. A sin in the bible means doing something you enjoy, hence, no depression and infact the exact opposite.

  But I digress, the encouragement of Islam or indeed any religion in this country appalls me. British law, unrelated to any religion, should be the only law that is adhered to. Mixing laws will only add confusion and encourage muslims to push further until we have the legal practice of female mutilation, or stupidly called circumcision, and of course all those delightful stoning to deaths and beheadings, mainly of women!

  Islam is an out-dated religion that relies on 7th Century morals and ideoligies, this is not the kind of system that we should be encouraging within British territory, especially in the 21st Century.

• Letters From A Tory // February 18, 2008 at 10:38 am

  Agreed. Labour seem quite happy to let a parallel system of laws develop, which I don’t think the British public appreciate.

  Shame the Conservatives seem to remain awfully quiet about this.

• Madeley // February 18, 2008 at 1:29 pm

  My understanding from reading the link- and I may be wrong- is that what is being offered is a new type of stock bond that doesn’t involve a ‘gambling’ element which wouldn’t be compliant with Islamic law. So we’re talking about a new kind of product being offered that isn’t contrary to British law- nothing about creating a parallel legal system. In fact, sounds a lot like the ‘market’ finding a new way to get people to buy something.

  So are we in favour of free trade, or aren’t we? How can we criticise the Government for working against the free market, and then immediately criticise them for taking steps completely legal under UK law to further open the current market? As for any worry about it setting a ‘precedent’, that horse has already bolted. Banks have been offering mortgages compliant with Islamic law for years.

• Letters From A Tory // February 18, 2008 at 1:43 pm

  The fact that this is a financial issue is not the point.

  What is happening here is that a religious group is being given special rules which allow them to overlay their subjective views onto the dealings of the British Government. If the Government goes ahead and allows religious groups to command new rules, where does this end? Why can’t every religion start to demand that the British government moves the goalposts on any inconvenient legal or financial situation to fit with their ‘teachings’ or ‘values’? The Government will have no choice but to say yes to every future request, regardless of the inconvenience.

  And I should add that your point about the free market is dubious, seeing as this latest move will allow Islamic firms to buy British companies, British assets and our government buildings when foreign firms are banned from owning these assets in many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia. Free market my butt! (if you’ll excuse the phrase).

• Madeley // February 18, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  “A religious group is being given special rules which allow them to overlay their subjective views onto the dealings of the British Government”.

  In this case I disagree. No one is creating special new laws bringing a subjective viewpoint into law. A new product is being offered that is 100% compliant with existing UK law (as I understand it, of course), and happens to suit an individual’s particular rules of ethics.

  For example: say there are two types of mortgage available, one where I just pay off what I owe plus interest, and another tied to a stock market investment that may save money in the long run, but may not. I believe that Tinkerbell at the bottom of the garden has told me that gambling is sacred so I must always take the second deal. What’s the problem? Should I be banned from being able to choose what product to buy because I believe in fairies? Should Nat West be banned from offering such a product because they want a cut of sweet, sweet Tinkerbellian cash?

  On the other hand, say I chose to buy the latter, but I expect the deal to be subject to the Common Law of the Dancing Blue Goblins and no other. That’s plainly unacceptable because I’m expecting a UK financial transaction to be subject to non-UK law. The bottom line is as long as Islamic bonds comply with UK law, and require no special modification of UK law, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be offered.

  “Foreign firms are banned from owning these assets in many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia.”

  And as a matter of principle, the UK would never do business with Saudi Arabia.

  We have to be careful not to lump all Muslims in with each other here. An argument over what kind of business we do with a given nation is, I believe, a separate matter. In free market terms, my understanding is that as many people and businesses as possible should be allowed to compete either as providers or as customers. If a new system has been devised to be as all-encompasing as possible, then that can only strengthen the market. We certainly shouldn’t discourage a Muslim for engaging with the market if, for example, she’s a British national who’s grandparents migrated from Senegal but the UK Government happens to be in the middle of a business disagreement with the United Arab Emirates.

• Letters From A Tory // February 18, 2008 at 3:50 pm

  State-owned investment funds, like the Qatari group that owns 25% of shares in Sainsburys, are notoriously secretive, and some people were also pointing out in today’s paper that we have no idea whether financial firms from the Middle East are linked to terrorist activities.

  And it’s not just Saudi Arabia that is the problem - most Islamic states have very strict controls on foreign ownership and investment. Opening our markets to sharia products is nothing like free trade and makes me even more convinced that the British Government is not acting in the best interests of this country.

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